or practical wisdom must guide us in carefully selecting our acts, or “means," even after we have carefully selected our goals, or “ends," e.g., vi. 9.7, 12.6, and 13.7. Nowhere is there any hint that the matter is as cut and dried as some would have us believe. In fact, Aristotle would say that we should be careful in selecting our goals for they will shape our whole manner of life. You see, the “end" or goal of life is the agent that causes us to act in certain ways. Of course, this is not new to the Christian who is familiar with such passages as Matthew 6:21, Colossians 3:1-7, and James 4. Now there is a vast difference between the words cause and justify. Yet this crucial middle part in the phrase, “the end justifies the means," is seldom ever commented upon. The phrase stands as a self-justifying maxim ready to dignify and bless any and every means. That is its error. By whose authority do we steal to satisfy our hunger — by the authority of the phrase that says it is justified? The Bible may not justify a given act, but the phrase will justify any and every act that moves you toward your goal. Even the pagan Aristotle was too intelligent to fall for a system of morality based on a self-justifying maxim. Morality consisted of far more than a phrase to him. In fact, he even believed that a person lacking virtue (and to him that could be simply one who “ loves pleasure," Nicomachean Ethics, vi. 5.6) could not even select proper ends, let alone choose acceptable means or acts from the good and bad alterna tives before him. Looking at this new phrase, "the end causes the means," we can understand why some people do the things they do. Or why we act in certain ways. But there is nothing self-justifying in the phrase. It is neither a philosophy of life nor a cornerstone for a personal ethic. It is simply one way of explaining behavior. The end does not justify the means, it may simply cause it. The key question for the Christian is still, "Are my goals and the things they cause me to do acceptable to my Lord in the light of the whole counsel of God?" Are our acts bringing glory to Cod (I Corinthians 10:31)? A6 I see it, there is, after all, no way to justify the works of unrighteousness. We must still “ live to the praise of His glory" (Ephesians 1:6), not to the uncertain sound of a man-made maxim.
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